Friday, 8 June 2012

The Indiepop Map of Great Britain

You know that feeling you get when skimming stones at the beach, and after a dozen or so flompers (they bounce once and then just flomp on their side, sinking both themselves and your heart at the same time...), you suddenly skim the perfect stone - it bounces once, twice...eighteen times! Your breathing stops and you leap in the air with a yell and a woot! And then there's another twenty flompers...

The perfect pop song is like the perfect skimming pebble. The perfect pop song can be old or new, but it has to have spirit, it has to have spunk, it has to have that bouncing feeling, as though the music is walking on water. A lot of so-called indiepop gives me that feeling. There may be buzzsaw guitar, there may be primitive drums, thumping away like a scared rabbit; it may be gentle and sweet, but it has to be special.

Often, you hear a geographical reference in a song - tears at Bellshill Station as a lover disappears up the railway track perhaps, or a song about it raining at a football match. I thought it would be interesting to compile these references on to a map, so I did (with a little help from my friend Louise)! The map is shown above, and I've opened it up for everyone to edit, so if you can think of any relevant additions, please feel free to add them!

The key to the different coloured pins goes like this:

Yellow: a place is named in the song title.
Blue: a place is mentioned within the lyrics.
Red: where a band lived (usually taken from addresses on old vinyl sleeves).
Green: record label or shop addresses.
Purple: old fanzine addresses.

Footnotes:

I've only added one Half Man Half biscuit song from the many available. There is a separate HMHB lyric map to be found here.

My definition of indiepop will be different to everyone else's. I've included songs from related genres, such as the tuneful end of punk. So long as there's some independently-minded and spirited pop going on, that's good enough for me.

No metal.

UK only. If anyone wants to create a map for another region (or expand worldwide), be my guest.